Astonishing pain: Arthritis sufferers may be left in more pain if NICE restricts access to £100-a-week drugs

A profit-hungry drugs industry driven by executives' bonuses is to blame for new drugs being judged too pricey for the NHS, the head of the Government's drugs' rationing body has said.

In an astonishing attempt to shift the spotlight onto the pharmaceutical industry, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of the beleaguered National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, accused drug companies of driving up the price of vital new medicines in order to boost profits and protect executive bonuses.

His comments come just days after Nice was accused of handing kidney cancer patients an 'early death sentence' by refusing to approve four life-extending kidney cancer drugs for prescription on the NHS because they cost too much.

Nice, which rates a drug's effectiveness against its cost, has previously come under fire for banning or restricting the use of breakthrough medicines for a host of conditions, from breast cancer to Alzheimer's disease.

Professor Sir Michael Rawlins said the blame lay not with Nice, but with a pharmaceutical industry subject to 'perverse incentives' to hike prices.

'We are told we are being mean all the time, but what nobody mentions is why the drugs are so expensive,' he said.

'The share price is very important to a pharmaceutical company,' he said.

'Pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed double-digit growth year on year and they are out to sustain that, not least because their senior management's earnings are related to the share price.

'It's not in their interests to take less profit, personally as well as from the point of view of the business. All these perverse incentives drive the price up.'

In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, he said that high prices allowed drug companies to cushion against losses made when big earners go 'off patent', allowing their rivals to produce cheaper versions.

Companies are spending twice as much on marketing than development, and historically, many firms have taken a view that they should charge as much as they could get away with, he claimed.

On the decision to ban the kidney cancer drugs Sutent (sunitinib), Avastin (bevacizumab), Nexavar (sorafenib) and Torisel (temsirolimus) for those in the advanced stages of the disease, Professor Rawlins said: 'We have a finite amount for healthcare, and if you spend money one way, you can't spend it in another.'

Nice's chief executive Andrew Dillon, also weighed into the row, saying it was up to health trusts to be end the postcode lottery that occurs when some hospitals agree that exceptional circumstances warrant the funding drugs rejected by Nice and others don't.

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Mr Dillon told the BBC's Panorama: 'It shouldn't make any difference where you live.

'What patients really need to do is find out from those who are making a decision what the basis of that decision is, and if they don't think it's reasonable, if they don't think it compares appropriately with decisions that are taken elsewhere, ask "why not?"

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley accused the Government of failing to ensure that the price paid for new cancer drugs reflected their worth.

'It is really for the government to explain why new cancer drugs are far more available elsewhere in Europe and America than they are through the NHS in this country,' he said.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said there were 'real concerns' that regulations set down for Nice by the Government rule out medications that ought to be available to the public.

'We must not lose sight of the need for a thorough review of Nice,' he said.

Cancer doctors said patients should not be made to battle to obtain the latest drugs.

Dr Mark Saunders, consultant clinical oncologist at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, said: 'People with advanced bowel cancer should not have to go through the trauma, stress and delay of appealing for access to treatment that ought to be available as a matter of course.

'They already have enough to deal with in terms of coping with the trauma of a terminal illness.

'You really cannot put a value on the extra time and quality of life these drugs provide.

'If other European countries are able to provide them, then why can't we do the same?'

And the drug industry hit back, saying prices have fallen by more than 20 per cent in real terms in 10 years, despite the hundreds of millions needed to develop a successful drug.

A spokesman for the trade body, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said: 'Of course, pharmaceutical companies make a huge investment into public health when they develop a new medicine: it costs an average £550million, and takes more than 10 years to bring each new treatment to patients.

'Naturally companies will look to recoup such costs through the final price.'